Category: TILT

Back again with the random things that caught my eye since last Thursday. Though I still really like checking in with all the blogs I posted on last week’s list, there is so much more, and there is so much more than is on this list, but while I read pretty fast, I’m sure I’ve missed a whole bunch of gems out there. We’ve made a slightly modified (more peaches!) version of this peach pie smoothie from Connoisserurus Veg about three or four times since I spotted it. Recipes This Vegan Mock Chopped Liver spread from Triumph Wellness. I can imagine this would be perfect on bagels, or anything really, and I’ve been dreaming of baking bagels the moment it started getting cooler outside. Soon the bagelling will begin, probably for post-Yom Kippur break fast next month. Muggle Pumpkin Juice Smoothies from Dumbledore’s Vegan Army. Last year, for my birthday we travelled a bit in the southern USA, as part of that trip we went to the Universal Studios park and visited Hogwarts… and they had this pumpkin juice…. If you’ve had the pumpkin juice you would understand. It’s so delicious. So delicious. So I want to try this, because I’m a muggle, and I like pumpkin juice. Also, it’s pumpkin time. JC’s youngest sisters loves the Nightmare Before Christmas. So I had to share this perfect for fall Jack Skellington’s Spicy Pumpkin-Soup (in german) – translate to English. (I’m also getting really excited for fall.) Spicy Vegan Chex Mex from House Vegan. Because snacks. if you…

Sure sure, it’s been only a few days of Vegan MoFo. How do I have things I love already? Easy. Vegan Mofo is pretty incredible, with so many wonderful vegan bloggers coming together to share all their different stories and recipes and reviews and hot tips and whatever. Like I said in my intro, I wanted to use my usual Things I Love Thursday post to share some of my favourite posts and themes of the week. I love travelling, and we went to New Orleans in December, so I’m loving the posts from Laughfrodesiac, especially focusing on New Orleans (this week) and a new theme and location every week. Mary’s Test Kitchen – An entire month of Vegan Cultured Cheese WITH video. Yes, an entire month of vegan cultured cheese videos. Amazing. A 10 year old lifelong vegan’s blog – Peace, Love, Be Vegan – her theme is “How This Kid Gets Protein” but frankly, I’m just really jazzed to see a young vegan blogger, and what she’s eating. Dumbledore’s Vegan Army is back this year for VeganMoFo!!! Vegan twists on classic foods from the World of Harry Potter (and some tips on vegan stuff at The Wizardly World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios!!!) (how many more exclamation points can I add to this?) Tofu Mom is doing a month of Gravy. GRAVY people. Vegan, obviously. And then I saw this amazing looking biscuit recipe on Vegan Heritage Press from Zsu Dever’s Everyday Vegan Eats which looks like it would be amazing…

JC and I have just come back from driving around North America for around 7 weeks, and I’m full of feelings of gratitude and awe at having such a wonderful opportunity this summer, and trying to take stock of all the incredible things and places and people we’ve had the privilege to visit. When we started planning our trip, I titled our shared Google doc – “Oh the Places You’ll Go, ” and 19,000 km later, we sure did. I feel a little more aware of the diverse and unique beauty and history that’s all over our continent and the parts of it we’ve been able to see so far. I’m looking forward to seeing more in the future, but what we’ve seen so far, has been pretty wonderful. So we’ve travelled from Toronto, to Chicago, then north through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, across through the colourful Canadian prairies, including a stop at Riding Mountain National Park, east west across Canada to Alberta, through the yellow, green, and tan fields stretching through Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We went south through an International Peace Park (a collaboration of Glacier National Park in USA and Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada), and kept going through Montana and Wyoming (Yellowstone National Park), barely a stop in Idaho (I didn’t even buy any potatoes), delicious food and huge temples in Utah, a hacker convention in Nevada, blending together our love of natural beauty, history, delicious vegan food, and ridiculous/awesome random delightful nerdery along the way. We explored several beautiful mountain ranges…

Full Disclosure: I’m writing this on Wednesday. Today we’re heading to Waterton Lakes National Park today to go camping, followed by Glacier National Park in the USA, followed by Grand Teton & Yellowstone. So on the things I love Thursday – all of those are definitely at the top of my list. When I booked our Yellowstone campsite about a month ago I was beyond excited. Now that we’ve done the camping thing together a bit more, I’m even more excited. It’s been a lot of fun so far. Visiting with friends in Winnipeg, showing JC some of my old stomping grounds in Saskatoon, and visiting family and friends in Edmonton over the last week has been incredible, and it’s hard to believe we drove here. (Or I should say – JC drove here, I still don’t have my license.) The last two weeks we’ve been in so many different places. I’ve been really enjoying the ability to look at my Google Location History to see the whole trip so far. You might find it creepy though, especially if you have an android device, but check it out (and change your settings if you don’t want your location tracked!!) This country is incredible, and if you ever get the change to explore the prairies, I promise it’s worth it. Especially if you’re from Toronto. The skies are amazing. Till next time… please feel free to connect on instagram, twitter, or facebook.

JC and I have embarked on a grand road trip. So far we’ve been through Michigan, Indiana, & Illinois. Eventually today we’ll be hitting Wisconsin and Minnesota. Travelling is always exciting, but travelling by land has always offered more of an experience for me. With flying there are huge sections that you never ever see, when you drive or take the bus you get to see things whether you care to see them or not. I’m hoping to share stories about camping in Michigan and exploring Chicago very soon, but for now, please keep in touch on facebook or instagram. We’re having a great time!

There are a few things I’m grateful for this week. Supportive friends, sunshine, a really good batch of cold brew coffee, that all three of my cats are getting along (sort of), the house is covered in lush green ivy, and the garden JC and I have worked on has turned our first growing season in our new home into a really nice verdant and cozy space. The most incredible thing for me is that I took a picture of the house before I left for Edmonton a couple of weeks ago, and when I arrived back in Toronto I was surprised by the beautiful wall of green outside. 100 in 1 Day Toronto Tomorrow is 100 in 1 Toronto, which is an incredible event where people gather together, decide to make something happen, and take up space doing it. Click the above image to find out more about 100 in 1 Day Toronto Vegan Pop Up There is a Vegan Pop Up coming up on June 15th, and I’m happy to be involved in it. There is this incredible amount of excitement at having everything come together, and it’s only just under ten days away. We’ve got a really fabulous combination of little vegan businesses and some more well known folks – there will be a couple of vegan and/or animal focused local organizations attending, and proceeds from admission tickets are going to support a farm sanctuary (Cedar Row). We’ll have an animal care item donation box for All Creatures Rescue and a…

After last the lazy vegan Friday post about Gardein’s Breakfast Sandwiches, one of you wonderful readers were kind enough to tell me where I could find Gardein’s Fishless Filets (thanks Dan!) After my attempts to find it at Essence of Life were fauxfishless. So this weekend we took a little trip up to Fiesta Farms, a great independent grocery store at Christie & Essex Street, with lots of plant-based options, and checked out the freezer section. They had the Fishless Filets, and I filled up my basket. As a courtesy to other people – I did not take all of them, but I was tempted. After trying them at this year’s ExpoWest, I had some idea of what to expect from this product, but everything tastes a little different when you make it at home, so I was interested in seeing how it would translate when a non-gardein rep (me) was making them. Upon opening the package, there are six pieces of fishless filets, and, although they’re frozen, they look golden and brown already (but a little too hard to eat). I followed the baking instructions the three times I’ve made them so far, with positive results. I find for ultimate laziness, it’s best to only do one step, rather than the microwave + pan frying step. It only takes around a half an hour which is fast enough for me, though it’s nice to have options. So what did I think? I’ve loved this product at first bite, so…

I’ve been having a very good week this week. And probably last week too. It’s one of those weeks where things are going so great, and I felt so positive and optimistic, that I simultaneously felt myself bracing for something bad to happen. So, yesterday, something sort of bad did happen. Our newest rescue cat, Marmie, escaped from our front door. We’ve had Marmie in our house since sometime in October, before JC and I got married. Initially she was feral, initially we were just fostering her briefly for a friend, initially we weren’t sure if she would be sticking around. But at some point along the way, she warmed up to us, and we warmed up to her, so the arrangement became more permanent. So now, yesterday she escaped for the second time. And this time all blame was firmly planted on me, which might be worse than feeling mad at someone else. I hadn’t locked the door & the wind blew the door open, Marmie took her chance, and left before I could do anything. I spent at least an hour afterwards beating myself up over it. It was one of those terrible cycles of should haves and would haves that aren’t constructive at all, and it wasn’t going to bring Marmie back home to me. Once I realized it wasn’t a very constructive cycle and wasn’t going to solve anything, I shut it down and tried to spend the rest my day as normally as possible. On the bright…

Last week I was in beautiful Southern California for the Natural Food Expo West in Anaheim California. I like that I didn’t bring boots, or a coat, or gloves. There was no need for hats or scarves. It was consistently around 20C, and sunny. I went outside in sandals. I had to get sun glasses. I got to go to Intelligentsia Coffee & Donut Friend with a friend. We also went to see the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center. Seeing the space shuttle was one of the most epic and awesome things I’ve seen in my life so far. This giant thing was actually in SPACE. Me and space are separated by one degree now (okay okay, I met an astronaut, so that was already the case, but still! So exciting) There was a 5-10 minute before you enter the shuttle room that just filled me with this incredible feeling of wonder and excitement. I felt pumped. The amount of work, hundreds of people did to get the Shuttle through the streets of Los Angeles to its final resting place. I got to try a lot of incredible new vegan products at ExpoWest. And brought home a bunch of samples. Tomorrow I’ll have a few highlights up from the event. I even won a big gift basket of mostly vegan Austin, TX stuff from the Bearded Brothers. While I loved being in Southern California soaking up sunshine and delicious vegan stuff that we can’t get here, I…

Travel As much as I love where I live, or as much as I always try to love where I live, wherever that might be, it’s always nice to leave the usual for a while. I enjoy the act of planning a trip, even a brief one, (& even if I’m not even going.) Part of me is convinced that my list of places and restaurants, and transit information will not just help me, but might help someone else someday, so that’s a major reason behind why I bother. It helps me, but one of my favourite things about the internet is that there is always the potential to share information that might be useful to someone else. I probably would have done well as a travel agent. Plus I love making functional lists. And checking them off. Or Google maps. With layers. Coming soon. Recipe for Change Later this evening FoodShare’s annual fundraiser Recipe for Change is on. It will be my third year going. JC and I have such a great time wandering around, taking pictures, eating, drinking, and checking out the silent auction items. We don’t make it out to a lot of fundraisers every year, but we make this one a priority. I’m really into the work that FoodShare Toronto does in the city, especially when it comes to teaching kids how to cook and prepare food, their work on school gardening projects, and their fantastic Field to Table school programs and workshops. Check this stuff out,…